AVCE ICT Unit 7 - Programming Session 9 – Using pseudocode and structured English

Pseudocode This looks like programming code but isn’t specific to any language The idea being that you can write a general program to hand to a programmer to develop Advantage: Quick, non language specific Disadvantage: When you are learning to program this might feel like an unnecessary step You have to get to grips with the real language and this might be even more confusing

Structured English A good place to start with a program is a statement of the user’s needs followed by a specification Then write out in sentences what the program needs to do at each step All of the time, consider how a computer runs an event driven program Voila! You can write structured English!

Examples A program for adding two numbers and displaying the result: The user types in intNumber1 The user types in intNumber2 Add intNumber1 and intNumber2 Display the total on the VDU screen This isn’t programming code just yet..

Examples Start with general sentences Remove as many of the extra words as you can and just leave the bare minimum If you are taking in input, use the term “read in” or “get”….. If you are displaying data, use the term “print out” All languages have commands to do these and mathematical and logical operations

Examples Read in intNumber1 Read in intNumber2 intTotal=intNumber1+intNumber2 Print out intTotal Now this is like program code Because of this it is called pseudocode Structured English is what it is written in

Examples Write some pseudocode for the following programs: A program to total three numbers and then find the average of all three A program for converting £ into  (Euros)  Just do this last one one way if you wish

Documentation You will get extra marks for having documented the design of your program You can write out the program first using structured English This is a good thing to do as experienced programmers can “dry run” the program on paper first

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